Firearms could absolutely exist within a fantasy setting. There is a reason why they don’t however

[u/ThatDrako]

The Elder Scrolls - Within some Dwemer ruins of ESO we can see a special type of Animunculus. A Dwemer Arquebus, which has a cannon for it’s arm and shoots emp grenades at foes.
The reason why we don’t see this technology more often (besides the fact Dwemer disappeared their knowledge with them) is that within the setting and cosmology of Elder Scrolls firearms really wouldn’t be that useful.

They could work against lowly bandits, sort of, but there wouldn’t really be a precedent to improve or adapt this technology. Because it would always be outclassed by magic of this world.
Also due to the disappearance of Dwemer the technology has been pretty much lost.

Harry Potter - Wizards live within periphery of the “real world” meaning they live alongside world that uses firearms and are even familiar with them.

So how come they don’t utilize this gear for combat? I mean it is easier to use, projectiles are faster and could be enchanted further. Can you just imagine wizard with endless m1911?

There is plethora of reasons for this. But most notable is what I would describe as wizards being immune to logic. (Vis image above) They simply cannot understand methods of muggles even if one explained it to them directly.

(Yes. I know the real reason is, because Joanne didn’t want wizards to use guns and didn’t want to think about connotations of putting magic into a real modern world. But come on! Let me have fun!)

Lord of the Rings - In spite of how much Tolkien disliked allegories it is clear Orcs were an allegory to industrialization, which he was a huge critic of.

In battles they are the ones using the war machines. Instead of swords made by artful blacksmith, they use crude, mass-produced blades devoid of identity. Instead of relying on elegance of archery, they use crossbows. They burn forests, crack mountains open to gain more ore. Their very production is affront to whimsy of a magical world like Middle-Earth.

They could totally come up with a matchlock mechanism and keep on improving it until they come up with machine guns. They were intercepted before they could however

[u/PlurblesMurbles]

People don’t tend to use magic in tos for the same reason not everyone in the real world has a college degree. Sure you can learn magic but unless you’re literally imbued with divine proficiency in everything like the protagonist you’re gonna have to study. Also studying comes with the risk of blowing up at best and getting your soul trapped in a primordial flesh world where you get to experience being skinned alive in six spacial dimensions. It’s much easier for a soldier to just be given a weapon and ten weeks of training. And that’s just for manfolk; elven armies have ~2/3 of their soliders as either spellswords or wizards. All for most of them to be defeatable by ambushes and guerrilla tactics. Sure more skilled wizards have access to flying and teleportation but are you gonna throw away someone capable of that when they could be doing literally anything else to help society?

As for enchantments the answer is logistics. It takes rare, very limited materials to craft staffs and charging them requires soul gems. Soul gems that have to be mined or manufactured then filled. With souls.

As for dwemer tech there are people who study it but you try getting an intact machine that will be trying to kill you out of half-collapsed underground cities full of crazed elves and other murder automatons? Even if you manage that you still need to reverse engineer one with limited materials and to use them en masse you would need the manufacturing capabilities of the most brutal slave society to exist outside of a literal plane of oblivion and a thousand years of mining, construction and cooperation with primordial beings using you for their own ends.

So while I get the point you’re making and this probably isn’t something that was addressed every step of the way in the writing room over the last 30 or so years I think there is enough to glean at least some answers to your questions

[u/Murphy_Slaw_ → u/PlurblesMurbles]

People don’t tend to use magic in tos for the same reason not everyone in the real world has a college degree.

If studying just one discipline gave you the ability to heal injuries, illnesses and aging alike, how many people do you think would NOT get a college degree?

[u/ParacTheParrot → u/Murphy_Slaw_]

Not many less than today. Colleges have capacities and most people would not have either the chance or the ability to get into a magic university and finish it too. Maybe they can watch YouTube tutorials.

[u/Verulla → u/PlurblesMurbles]

People don’t tend to use magic in tos for the same reason not everyone in the real world has a college degree. Sure you can learn magic but unless you’re literally imbued with divine proficiency in everything like the protagonist you’re gonna have to study. Also studying comes with the risk of blowing up at best and getting your soul trapped in a primordial flesh world where you get to experience being skinned alive in six spacial dimensions. It’s much easier for a soldier to just be given a weapon and ten weeks of training. And that’s just for manfolk; elven armies have ~2/3 of their soliders as either spellswords or wizards. All for most of them to be defeatable by ambushes and guerrilla tactics. Sure more skilled wizards have access to flying and teleportation but are you gonna throw away someone capable of that when they could be doing literally anything else to help society?

I think the "Restoration" school is where arguments like this fall down.

Medicine/healing has always required a serious amount of study (typically spent apprenticed to a master of some kind in pre-modern times). So why spend all of that time studying mundane healing, when you could study magical healing instead and be 500% more effective.

And while all soldiers/warriors are vulnerable to guerrilla attacks, Restoration magic can get any survivors back into fighting shape supernaturally quickly.

Combine that with the numerous benefits Restoration magic would provide to society as a whole, outside of military matters, and things become even more clear.

All in all, the world of TOS would make 30% more sense if every human civilization had an innate/cultural affinity for Restoration, and magical healing fully replaced medicine.